The Boy Who Couldn't See

I've written this because I'm starting college tomorrow and I don't know what that will mean for my updating regime. Also that the blind!Peeta idea has been niggling at my brain for quite some time now.

Enjoy!

The Boy Who Couldn't See

By Blueberrychills94

Nobody knew how he lost his eyesight. Rumours go around, as rumours do, about possible things that could have happened to cause his blindness. None of them were true. It was quite possible that maybe nobody was meant to know. That it was one of those things that was supposed to remain secret. The truth was, it was nobody's business. In High School, however, kids made it their business through a persistence that borders on unhealthy ideas that makes them believe that they have a right to know.

Nobody thought to ask.

Katniss had known the blind boy since she was a child. She didn't know his name; in fact she had never spoken to him in her entire life. She had seen him in passing ever since Elementary School, ever since she first walked home on her own. Ever since she walked through the orange tinted streets during the cusp of autumn, backpack straps clutched tightly in her small hands with the preparation of attack. It wasn't an extravagant thing to witness; there were plenty of people with disabilities in Panem City. To Katniss, when she saw the blond child sitting outside the bakery that her mother frequented, with his sunglasses and stick, she had thought nothing of it.

High School grew into a different matter.

Katniss thought of the blind boy differently to everyone else. She didn't care about who he was or where he came from. She didn't care about anyone that much besides herself and her sister. This boy-just because he was blind-was no exception to her. Where everyone would stare at him when he passed, Katniss wouldn't so much as lift her head. What was the point? It wasn't like he was aware of everyone else's curiosity anyway.

The kids were cruel.

They would never physically hurt the blind boy. Doing something like that would be worthy of a death sentence in the eyes of their Principal, Alma Coin. Their words, whispered from ear to ear with giggles and dirty faces pulled at the back of the boy's head, were an entirely different matter. It made Katniss sick. She hated her school. And all the people in it. Not because of what they were doing to the blind boy but because of what they were doing as people on a whole. The blind boy wasn't a special case. They were dicks to everyone who wasn't like them.

Katniss distanced herself from everyone in her school. She had done since her first day of Freshman Year. She didn't interact with anyone beside Madge, who she only said hello to in passing because Madge's parents were friendly with Katniss' mother and would surely report her surliness to her the next time they bumped into each other in the supermarket. Being involved with the others was too much drama and Katniss didn't want to be around people who she couldn't trust anyway.

Even if she could, she didn't want to.

Katniss excelled herself in classes. She supposed the lack of distraction caused by party invitations and declarations to get 'wasted at the weekend' kept her mind clear for every exam she sat. She made a point of doing well in her education to set a good example to her younger sister and make sure she didn't end up working in Walmart alongside the girls who thought they were going to sail through life with their daddy's money.

Physical Education was the best because Katniss was able to run from everyone and not be questioned for it. The track course was huge and encompassed the basketball cage. Nobody else in her class really tried-they used broken nails and sore ankles as excuses to walk instead of run-but every day Katniss grasped the opportunity to just take off as fast she could. Away from those assholes, away from the things they said and did, the things they planned to do and the lives they intended to ruin.